Storytelling Matters – Tips to Use Audio and Digital to Tell Yours

Storytelling Matters – Tips to Use Audio and Digital to Tell Yours

 
People love a good story. Whether it’s a book, a poem, a movie score, or beautiful photography, they are all elements of engaging storytelling that create a feeling for the audience. Telling a good story is one of the most effective ways to make your brand resonate with customers. It draws the listener or viewer in, engaging their interest and putting them exactly where you want them to imagine themselves.
 
Each of the examples listed above represents both digital and audio. Engaging different senses to deepen an experience is not new. How often have you heard chefs say that a tasty meal starts with the eyes? You see the beautiful plate, and your mouth starts to water in anticipation.
 
Digital and audio ads are similar in concept. They engage different senses to create a more emotional connection and a longer-lasting impression. The result is that your brand will remain top of mind for your customers. Let’s look at how you can use digital and audio to create a cohesive brand story that resonates with your target customers.
 

How Storytelling Makes Brands Resonate

 
Connecting to your customers through storytelling is critical for your marketing strategy. It makes your brand memorable and imparts a sense of purpose. You can let your customers know what inspires you, how you created your business and inform them about your mission. Customers want to spend their money with companies whose values align with theirs, and storytelling shows them your values, letting them quickly find out whether they align with theirs.
 
You have the power to determine how people see you by presenting scenarios with which they can identify. Customers want to see themselves represented by the brands they purchase. You can inspire and persuade your target audience to take the desired action with persuasive language. Your stories impart authenticity with a consistent voice across mediums, letting customers know they can trust your products or services.
 

Using Sound to Tell a Story

 
Throughout radio’s long history, hosts have conveyed significant information in easily digested audio ads using storytelling. Effects like jingles, background music, or sounds imbue the message with energy, evoke a feeling of nostalgia, or spur an urgent desire to have or recreate an experience. They can become so intertwined with a brand that they can identify the brand by simply hearing the sound without any other copy. Think of the Taco Bell bong sound effect, for example.
 
Radio hosts understand how to shape a story, making it more memorable. They know how to deliver the story to engage the listener and drive home a message. Listeners identify with personal anecdotes about the hosts’ experience with the brand. Sound effects enhance the story, creating an emotional connection with bold advertising.
 

Highlighting Story Elements Online

 
Digital marketing is another highly impactful way to reach your customers. It is often more concise than radio ads. However, you can still use it to tell a brand story by basing your copy and slogans around showing what you do and what values drive it.
 
Tailoring your messages to the audience you want to attract is essential. That will guide you on how best to communicate your value. While you can use different language and motivators for various demographics, keep your voice consistent throughout. Coherence communicates authenticity and helps to reinforce your brand story.
 

Cohesively Expanding a Story

 
The narrative you choose combines facts about your brand with the emotions you want your message to impart. Structure is an essential element of compelling storytelling. Whether digital or audio, you want first to capture the audience’s attention, create intrigue, and culminate in an impactful conclusion. You must convey all this while keeping your story cohesive across all mediums.
 
One key to cohesion is using similar language and slogans in digital or radio ads. Even if your digital ads don’t have accompanying sound, you can still impart the same feeling. Instead of audio, you can use wording and images to communicate what you use sound effects for during radio ads.
 

Use Storytelling to Make Your Brand Authentic, Approachable, and Memorable

 
Brands have used storytelling to stand out from the crowd if products, services, and competition exist. Radio is an ideal example of how a compelling story draws listeners in to deliver a message more effectively than overtly trying to sell them. Hosts use personal examples, inspirational or action words, music, and sounds to connect with the audience. Digital ads can use text only, words and images, music, video, sound effects, or a combination of all to tell a compelling story.
 
Storytelling helps grow your brand by differentiating it from your competition. With all the insurance companies out there, Farmers Insurance ads likely stand out due to the humorous real-life stories of improbable customer accidents they covered or the Allstate character, Mayhem, that caused all kinds of accidents. Of the numerous eyeglass companies, Warby Parker is memorable by showing how they make their eyeglasses durable and affordable and what inspired them to do it. Your story makes you unique in a sea of similar offerings.
 
Even if you are currently the unicorn, offering something entirely new for the market, you won’t always have that advantage. People want a reason to choose your brand over another. A compelling story gives you authenticity, makes you approachable, and keeps you top of mind for the customer.